Conference Welcome Address... President Brad Basal 2023
Hello All and Welcome to the 15th Annual Driver Education State Conference:
Glad to see so many of you here. This Turning Stone venue Shenandoah Club House is awesome. The weather has held up and I know that we all want to send a thank you to our conference committee who have put countless hours into organizing this event.
We appreciate being away from the noises surrounding the Boxing tournament and Football Conference going on over there and also probably saving us money from casino betting. :)
There is a short time at lunch if anyone does want to go over and win or lose money at the casino. And of course after the conference you can head across the way and see what this resort has to offer.
We also want to thank our vendors, as their presence shows their support and commitment to our profession.
It’s always a struggle to get people to commit to a weekend Saturday, a year away, for a driver education conference. You can see that out of over 400 email blasts announcing the conference and follow up information reminding interested parties to visit our web page, our attendance is still small but growing. As with many Associations, we have conflicts with school events, sports, family responsibility and of course costs associated with attending. These are our challenges. Is there ever a good time to host an event like this? Our conference committee has suggested that we consider having our annual conference rotate between virtual and in person. We think that our speakers and vendors may appreciate this as well.
So next year’s conference will most likely be virtual, not sure as of now but conference fees can be minimal for members. We will be surveying members regarding this. You will see on our websites that throughout the year ADTSEA offers virtual as well as in person workshops, so we are never too far away from professional development. Which has always been one of our main goals. Keeping us current and informed.
So, in closing, we are always calling for volunteers for committees, running for office or as every year, members helping out here at the conference to make things run smoothly. Thanks to all of you who have been helping today.
And with that Brett Robinson, Executive Director of ADTSEA, our Keynote speaker, will provide his own introduction and presentation.